


born flightless

by feralphoenix



Category: Uncommon Time (Video Game)
Genre: Child Abuse, Classism, F/M, Gen, Missing Scene, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-24
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-07-16 23:05:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,603
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7288273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feralphoenix/pseuds/feralphoenix
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>“Whoever roughed you up has kicked a hornet’s nest and probably doesn’t even know it,” Suzuran says sagely. The effect is only slightly ruined by the fact that she’s still grinning ear to ear. “You just gotta stop ‘Riette from doing a murder on them and you’re home free.”</i>
</p><p>In which Altair’s mother lays down an ultimatum, and Arietta helps him find a loophole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	born flightless

**Author's Note:**

> _(I wanted to make something strong_ – there are some people who cut you open and there are some people who sew you up)
> 
> posts......... even more canon side stories to [own game](http://dialoguelostloop.tumblr.com/uncommontime) on ao3 because why not..............
> 
> you shouldn't be reading this unless you've cleared both extra dungeons.

Sensation filters in before your conscious mind can catch up with the facts of what has just happened—the brief lag between sound from standing atop the stage and the reverb against the distant theater walls. Your ears ring—your cheek is buzzing and numb, that heat that always precedes stinging pain once your nerves come out of shock.

You don’t lift your hand to touch your face. You just raise your head and look at your mother in silence, where she quivers with rage and glares at you from her high seat. Her lips are pressed together tightly, pale in her disgust. The harsh lines age has carved in her face seem to shake.

“I will not have it,” she seethes. “Have you not besmirched our family’s honor enough? You may not be able to be the Bonheur heir, as would be your right, but that does not mean it’s permissible for you to behave in such a manner. First, that jumped-up half-breed _harlot,_ and now this? Paupers and street urchins? You would invite gutter scum to take up our proud name?” You aren’t given the opportunity to reply; she simply stands, towering over you from the podium. “No. I will not _allow_ it. Do this thing and I will expel you from this house, and sign your inheritance and your property over to someone worthier. If you mean to stay a Bonheur, then act like one.”

You breathe in lightly through your nose, and exhale just as lightly, straightening up. The whole side of your face is pounding where she backhanded you, but you cast it from your mind as best you can.

There’s no use in getting angry, or in showing your frustration, so you keep your expression mild and think it over. As much as you would love to be defiant, you need the Bonheur money and estates in order to do this. The orphanage director’s acceptance of your offer all but hinged on the great resources you had to offer; Arietta did offer to supply anything you had trouble with on your own, but even she only has a finite treasury and so much blasted land. She and her friends stay with you here in Polyphony because Bel Canto is still far too much of a mess. There’s only so hard you can lean, when her straits are as dire as everyone else’s. And you have to do everything in your power to make sure that you can follow through on what you’ve promised.

So: “Very well,” you say, your voice mild. “I won’t give the children our surname. I will find a suitable compromise.” You don’t even bother to tell her that you’re not backing down on your choice to take the orphans in. This is your penance, your duty, the best way you can give back. She should understand that much. You bow your head slightly. “Good day, Mother.”

And you turn on your heel, walking out of the audience hall in even steps.

 

 

By the time you’ve returned to your own mansion, you’re already worn out from making polite responses to worried members of your mother’s staff, and keeping your head up and letting passersby on the street stare at your bruised face. You’d like nothing more than to make yourself a cup of tea and lie down, perhaps with a book or one of the latest scientific journals.

But your responsibilities won’t wait, and you have to get them settled _now_ before they boil over into a real crisis and leave you no room to maneuver. So you just sigh a little and promise yourself tea and a book and relaxation time later and proceed into the sitting room.

Suzuran is there, lounging across the sofa—not actually taking up that much of it because of how short she is, but doing her best to occupy as many cushions as she can nonetheless. She’s sighing, too; she looks despondent, which is unusual for someone with her high energy level: She lies flopped with her legs sprawled out and one arm hanging off the side of the sofa as if wilting, the loops she ties her hair in crushed awkwardly along the pillows. As you approach, she opens her eyes; her gaze falls to your injuries immediately and she winces in sympathy.

“I don’t know what happened,” she says, not getting up, “but you don’t wanna go much further in looking like that. ‘Riette’s in the mood for a fight already. She’ll flip if she sees you like this.”

You sit down on one of the chairs. “Has something happened?”

Suzuran wrinkles up her face and shrugs listlessly, letting her hands flap back to lay on her chest. “It’s everything, Al. We’re all high-strung because of how bad the tower went down. I dunno if it’s how sensitive she is to the magical currents or just that shit! Keeps happening! So much!” She flashes animated for a few moments, then sinks back down, even limper and sorrier looking, if that’s even possible. “But either way, like—I was sparring with her up until just now, but I had to cry uncle a little while ago, because oooh, I just could _not_ keep up. Nobody can keep up with ‘Riette when she’s this bad.”

You’ve seen Suzuran fight—you’ve seen all of Arietta’s friends from around the world fight, by now—and she may be a tiny slip of a woman but she has biceps like bunched steel and she twirls her huge glaive like it’s no heavier than an especially long and whippy twig. She’s the most physically powerful of Arietta’s party. That not even she can be an adequate match seems very telling.

“I mean, if you _want_ her to paste whoever took offense to your face across the street then yeah, go ahead,” Suzuran goes on. “But if you’d rather she wouldn’t, I’d heal yourself first.”

“I _could,_ but I think my purposes elsewhere are better served if I don’t,” you explain to her, and smile. It’s probably not a very nice smile, by the way her eyebrows go up.

 _“Nice,”_ she remarks, grinning. “Between ‘Riette and Calix and ‘Vonne I forget how vindictive you can get when you want to be.”

 _“I?”_ you say, touching your chest lightly, pleasure tickling you into lifting the corners of your mouth. “Of course not. There are just a few things that I believe it’s a bit much to ask me to tolerate.”

“Whoever roughed you up has kicked a hornet’s nest and probably doesn’t even know it,” Suzuran says sagely. The effect is only slightly ruined by the fact that she’s still grinning ear to ear. “You just gotta stop ‘Riette from doing a murder on them and you’re home free.”

You chuckle. It’s so incredibly heartening, being back amongst people who treat you like your words and actions have weight. You’re happy to live in your own home, even if that means you’re “a bachelor living in debauchery”, as your family might put it.

Suzuran lets her right eye fall closed and regards you only with the left. The pale brown flaw in the blue of her iris draws your gaze, as it so often does.

“Hey,” she says. “Whatever this is, whatever you’re going to ask her help for—if it turns out to be rough for just you two, we’re here to back you up if you need us, okay? Just wanna make sure you know.”

You bow your head to her. “I appreciate it. I’ll keep it in mind, too.”

She gives you a lazy thumbs up and closes her left eye too.

 

 

Arietta is pacing circles in the basement.

Her heels ring on the stone— _clack, clack, clack_ —and her long hair billows behind her, seeming to ripple and snap like a flag every time she swivels on her heel. Every bone in her is sharp and straight and rigid, her eyes burn, her facial expression is blank. You’re amazed that her footsteps aren’t already setting off sparks.

You’re debating whether to call out to her when she turns again, head up so that you’re full in her line of sight. She freezes—her hair furls out to either side of her, still swaying with inertia. Her eyes widen just the tiniest bit. And then raw magical energy starts to warp the air around her, snapping like electricity.

“I’ll kill her,” she says, a low growl.

“Arietta,” you say, holding your hands up at your waist.

“I’ll cut her throat,” she snarls. “I will disembowel her and hang her from that stupid tacky chandelier of hers by her guts and leave her to _bleed dry._ Where is she.”

“Arietta,” you say, a little less pacification and a little more warning.

She stamps one foot, her heel giving off a sharp report against the stone-tiled floor. She’s shaking, wild-eyed, like she’s trying to contain a storm underneath her skin. Maybe she really is. “Altair Bonheur, you tell me where that recalcitrant _hag_ is right this instant so I can make her pay for _daring_ to raise a hand to you!”

You close the distance between the two of you, holding your hands at her upper arms, only barely close enough to graze her bare skin. The hairs on her arms are standing on end. She’s breathing far too hard. “I’m handling it,” you assure her, gentle and low. “This doesn’t have to end with you on trial for murder when you have so many other things you want and need to accomplish.”

Arietta shakes her head, her blank gaze still drilling a hole through your shoulder. “I should have been there, I should have gone with you. I could have stopped this. Damn it.”

If she’d gone, it would have been worse—it might have ended in further blows struck, or with a body on the floor if her volatile combination of temper and trauma had gone off. But Arietta herself might not think of that as _worse,_ so you decide that you’d better avoid saying so until she’s calmer.

“There’s nothing we can do about that now,” you tell her instead. “I’m not seriously hurt, and I am going to use what she’s done to publicly shame her, because I am one of the few people who _can_ speak against her and be believed. I’m alright. But I do need your help now, if you think you’re in a place to give it.”

She takes a deep breath, shudders, closes her eyes. Rallies. You settle your hands against her shoulders, lean in to press her forehead to yours. She grabs the fabric of your shirtfront in both hands, tight enough to crumple the stiff material between her fingers.

It takes her a few minutes, but then she straightens up. She’s not shaking with pent-up energy anymore, and her eyes are much clearer, if not perfectly lucid.

“Talk,” she tells you. Her tone isn’t near as flat as it would be if it were an order; it’s her idea of encouragement. You nod.

“My mother is, er, not overly fond of my welcoming the children into the family,” you explain. “I won’t be unceremoniously tossed out on my ear as long as I don’t give them our surname, but I still need a way to mark them as my wards for their own protection, and she wants to make it as difficult as possible. As if we should not be providing for others to the best of our ability, if we truly want to call ourselves _noble_ in every sense of the word.”

Arietta closes her eyes and shakes her head. “I’d offer _my_ name—it doesn’t mean that much to me, it never has—but somehow I doubt that the children would be all that amenable to that kind of idea.” She pauses, then folds her arms and opens her eyes again to regard you from the corners of them. “But I’m sure that there are other avenues open to you, aren’t there?”

“You’ll have to elaborate, I think,” you say carefully. “I need your help because I can’t think of anything.”

She unfolds her arms to twist the ribbon tied around her wrist, pulling it around and around in a circle. You’re not sure how that doesn’t chafe at her skin, but it stays still when she’s not actively playing with it, and apparently the texture of the fabric and the pressure both help her when she’s overwhelmed like this. You’re about to back down, tell her that she can have space for a little longer if she needs it, but she just turns her head slightly to one side.

“They need new names,” Arietta says. “To tie them to you, to mark their new beginnings, because they didn’t have any before, whichever. And you can’t give them yours, so you’ll just have to name them something else. Something that will immediately mark them as your children to anyone who knows anything.”

You frown a little, because she’s getting at something—something that must be obvious to her, but that your mind has yet to connect the dots to. Arietta watches you analytically, clearly seeing the gears turning, but—as the face she makes suggests—evidently not quickly enough for her liking. She turns and sweeps out of your arms, clacking her way over to one of the bookshelves pushed up against the far wall in stiff steps. Her eyes trace each shelf until she finds whatever she was looking for—and she pulls your huge, heavy star atlas loose, carrying it across the basement to you and pushing it into your arms with satisfaction in her eyes.

“I’m sure you could find a few useful things in this,” she says.

You look down at the book. Of _course._ You’re already grinning when you raise your head, fit to match Arietta’s crooked smirk.

“I daresay I could,” you say, and shift it to hold it under one arm so that you can reach out to cup her cheek in your free hand, leaning down to press your forehead to hers. “Thank you.”

She shakes her head a little, the ribbons in her hair bumping against your fingers. “It’s not much,” she murmurs, “certainly not as much as I’d _like_ to do for you. But damn it, it’s still something.”

“It’s more than enough for me,” you tell her, and close your eyes. “Thank you.”

Arietta sighs a little like she wants to argue, but her hands come up to touch your face lightly, too.

 

 

You help your first official adoptee—Aubrey, the white-haired, red-eyed child who had been eavesdropping when you and Arietta went to persuade the carers at the orphanage—into the tall chair, ensuring that they’ll have a clear view of the books and charts you’ve spread out across the table.

“Take as much time as you need,” you tell them as they scrutinize the reference materials you’ve spread out for them with an unreadable expression. “You can choose a star or a constellation if you’d like. Anything you like the sound of. This will be your surname now, after all. And if there’s any other information you’d like about any of the names, just ask me and I can tell you anything you want to know.”

They’re silent for several long, long minutes, and you try not to hold your breath too obviously as you watch over their shoulder. But at last, they raise one tiny hand and stretch it out over the diagrams of Virgo.

They hesitate for one moment longer, and then they point.


End file.
